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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26862097">Ashburnt</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2'>for_t2</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunger Games Series - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Artists, District 13 (Hunger Games), F/F, Falling In Love, Inspiration, Katniss Everdeen Needs a Hug, Late at Night, Promises, Propaganda, Rebellion, Self-Doubt, Wandering Alone in the Dark, War is hell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:07:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26862097</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If Cressida was out of ideas for propos, maybe she could be the inspiration for once. After all, what good is an artist without ideas on a battlefield?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cressida/Katniss Everdeen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ashburnt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nighttime was supposed to be when the ideas came. In those moments of fading consciousness, in dreams, when the mind started to lose itself in its images and words. The ideas didn't always make sense, and they were crap more often than not, but still they came. </p><p>Cressida had very early on learned to keep a small notebook by the side of her bed, and even quicker learned how to hide it whenever her parents or their guests wandered into her room. They always congratulated her and cooed over the ideas she was able to show, the ones she was able to turn into something productive for the teachers at school, but there always something that just felt wrong.</p><p>They were her ideas. And maybe that didn't make them precious, but it made them intimate. And the older she got, the more she tried to find her future in her world and her work, the more divergent the ideas got. The more dangerous they felt.</p><p>Even as she got a scholarship into Panem's best art school. Especially as her parents forced her into a pretty dress to go shake the president's hand itself as Snow told her he would watch her career with great interest. And never more so than when a drunken rumour made its way to her that she would be a getting an exclusive mentorship offer from the Head Gamemaker himself any day now.</p><p>But then a girl caught on fire, and it was so beautiful that something in Cressida finally burned too.</p><p>So she ran.</p><p>She brought her notebook with her, of course, because it burned so powerfully that the ideas just kept pouring out of her and onto the pages every day and every night and every time she shut her eyes.</p><p>Until the bombs started dropping. Until the art became less important than the production again. Until she had a war to win.</p><p>It turned out it was a lot harder to get lost in your imagination when every little sound could be the last gunshot you ever hear.</p><p>And as the days passed by, cooped up in grey underground concrete of the District 13 bunkers or hiding between the scorching smoke of freshly emptied battlefields, a part of her couldn't help but begin to resent it. That resented her ideas for not coming anymore, that resented herself for failing when the rebellion needed her, that resented her ideas for daring to be so different, so stupidly radical in the first place.</p><p>She was, after all, a Capitol girl, and her parents had said she always would be.</p><p>The more she lay there in the small, hard metal cots in the cold bunkers, the more that part of her missed the Capitol, and the more pissed off the rest of her got, because fuck her parents, fuck the president, and fuck the Capitol.</p><p>She was a rebel, she chose to be a rebel, and she was ready to die that way.</p><p>Being ready to die didn't really help the ideas come any quicker though. So every night the pages of her notebook stayed blank, she forced herself to stand up. To get out of her blankets and go hunt them down.</p><p>Sometimes she did. In some small, almost insignificant corner of the District, in the way the artificial lights caught a puddle on the concrete floor, on the way the hum of generators resonated and echoed down the depths of the stairwells, on the way a tired guard slumped next to a poster on the wall.</p><p>But sometimes she didn't. More often, those nights ended with her sharing a drink or a game with some of the night shifts, or maybe one of Coin's assistants rushing to grab her because it was time to make another move which meant time to make another propo. And sometimes, those nights just ended with her finding herself outside, watching the desolation under the stars until the sun broke through the horizon and told her it was time for coffee and time to get back to work.</p><p>Being a rebel wasn't always exciting. Being an artist wasn't always exciting. And being a rebel definitely wasn't often artistic. But if she wanted to be a filmmaker, if she wanted to be an artist, surely she had to...   </p><p>Had to be a speck of darker black against the grey, decades old ash of the District ruins. A speck that she'd recognise anywhere. </p><p>"Couldn't sleep either, eh?"</p><p>Even if Cressida tried to be as noisy as she could on her approach, Katniss still jumped. Still reached for an arrow. "No." Still didn't relax entirely when she recognised Cressida. "What do I need to film now?"</p><p>There was something profoundly heartbreaking about the way her face that looked as if it had almost been crying snapped into a warrior's attention. "Nothing." Cressida tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage as she sat down on the rubble next to Katniss. "I just couldn't sleep, and..." Heartbreaking didn't even begin to describe how Katniss made her feel. "You know, I used to think this would all be glorious."</p><p>"Glorious?" It was good that Katniss couldn't quite keep the angry incredulity out of her voice.</p><p>"Oh yeah," Cressida chuckled dryly. "Fighting the good fight and showing the Capitol where to stick it and all that. Nothing like a Capitol girl rebelling against the Capitol. It used to inspire me more than anything else ever did."</p><p>"There's nothing glorious about this." Katniss had every right to be harsh, every right to be tired, and Cressida wasn't going to stop her. "Nothing."</p><p>"I know, but..." But it was still her job to make it seem glorious. To make people believe in the glory.  "But here we are. We're still fighting." She spared a glance sideways that she couldn't quite bring to meet Katniss's eyes. "So tell me, my Mockingjay, what inspires you?"</p><p>"Prim." Katniss answered immediately, and without hesitation. "And Gale, and Peeta, and Rue, and everyone else who I can't let the Capitol kill."</p><p>So immediate it almost sounded rehearsed. But Cressida had spent enough time around Katniss to know that she was, well, not the exactly the best actor in Panem, and definitely not an actor who could deliver a line from a script even if her life depended on it. "I don't know if it scares me anymore, but it still hurts, doesn't it? Knowing how many more people are going to die?"</p><p>Katniss was silent for so long the word that finally came out of her might just've been a breath. "Yes."</p><p>"Sometimes I don't know if I can keep doing it. Keep finding news ideas for propos, new ways to keep people believing in the rebellion." To keep people fighting. "And sometimes I'm not sure I can keep using you."</p><p>"Because... Because you're what inspires me now." Maybe the problem was that she made Cressida burn too well. "And I can't help but think that you deserve better than to be a character in a propo."</p><p>Katniss stayed silent for another long moment, only the whistling of the wind travelling between them. "Do I have a choice?"</p><p>Cressida knew the answer, but wasn't sure she wanted to say it. "No. It's not just me you inspire." And there were so many ways in which Katniss inspired her, inspired them, in which she would be willing to fight, to die for her and only her. "But still, I think I'd like to see you smile for real one day."</p><p>Katniss couldn't quite meet Cressida's eyes either. "Think I'll still be able to?"</p><p>In that moment, Cressida desperately wanted to hug her. She settled for leaning over and placing a small kiss to her hear instead. "I'm an artist. And I'm a good artist. I'm sure I can find something to make you smile. Something beautiful."</p><p>The way Katniss smiled at that didn't quite reach her eyes, but it still made that fire burn stronger than it had any right to be. "Something beautiful?"</p><p>Of all the things in the world, of all the ideas Cressida could've found, none were as powerful as Katniss. As dangerous. As beautiful. None could've made her fall so madly in love. "Hell yeah."</p>
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